The co-chairs of the 18-member deficit commission issued a preliminary presentation two weeks ago that favored tax breaks for the wealthy and left open the possibility of deep cuts to Social Security, Medicare and other social programs. But there's still time for the commission to radically reshape its message before it issues its final report.
Demos, The Century Foundation and the Economic Policy Institute, in a joint venture, Our Fiscal Security, have just released a new report, "Investing in America's Economy: A Budget Blueprint for Economic Recovery and Fiscal Responsibility." (I'll have more later today about a second progressive proposal, which in part builds on this report.) Not only does it focus on the immediate crisis and the need for economic recovery in the short term, it is also focused on long-term economic growth for the economy as a whole as a key consideration in shaping a long-term sustainable budget policy. (Now, why didn't Obama think of that?) The press release explains:
The Blueprint takes a very different approach from other prominent proposals, specifically prioritizing a strong economic recovery because widespread job creation and robust economic growth are essential to successful deficit reduction.
The plan will produce the following short- and long-term results:
Substantial and sustained increased funding for job creation and investments, especially in the near term;
A budget path that significantly improves the 10-year budget outlook;
A transition from a primary deficit to a primary surplus in 2018, and sustainable debt levels by the end of the decade;
An improvement in the long-term path for public debt, stabilizing debt as a share of the economy beyond 2025;
A solid footing for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid for the long term; and
A modernized tax code that raises adequate revenue fairly and efficiently.
The Blueprint's budget path boosts funding for near-term job creation, achieves lower deficits in the medium-term and balances the primary federal budget in less than a decade. It does so with the recognition that boosting-rather than cutting-spending on national priorities, including infrastructure, transportation, technology and education, is critical to American prosperity. Unlike the other plans, the Blueprint provides a path to do more than cut the deficit; it has as its overarching goal the creation of a stronger middle class and a fundamentally more robust American economy.
Last night, Heather McGhee, Director of the Washington office of Demos, appeared on Countdown to talk about the plan:
Resolving a three-year old lawsuit filed against the state of Ohio that charged widespread violations of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), parties in the case have submitted a settlement agreement to the court that should ensure voter registration opportunities for hundreds of thousands of Ohio public assistance clients. Evidence presented in the case had shown that many of Ohio's county public assistance offices were ignoring their responsibilities to provide voter registration to their low-income clients, as required by the NVRA.
Enfranchising America's least represented citizens is as simple as following the law: that's the message Project Vote and a coalition of voting rights groups sent today as they filed lawsuits against Indiana and New Mexico for failing to comply with the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA).
While the report focuses attention on the current sorry state of the airline industry, and its underlying structural problems that lie behind the recent rash of airline crashes and near-misses such as the crash of the Continental/Colgan flight to Buffalo, it traces current conditions back to the decision, 30 years ago, to deregulate the airline industry.
How's this for an astonishing fact: Since 2000, U.S. airlines have reported net losses of more than $33 billion--almost twice their accumulated profits from 1938 to 1999!
Of course, the trump card for the deregulators is the claim of low fares, and broad affordability, but the executive summary notes:
[Economist Alfred] Kahn [the "father of airline deregulation"] and others have taken refuge in the argument that deregulation has produced lower airfares and wider access to air travel. The Demos report concludes that even this benefit is widely overstated. "While the price of flying has come down over the past thirty years," the report notes, "it decreased at a comparable rate from the 1940s through the 1960s. In any event, low airfares are as much a problem as an achievement if they leave an industry without the resources to maintain service standards and make crucial investments in equipment, technology, and human capital."
If anything this understates the case. If deregulation has resulted in net industry losses, those fare reductions were paid for by the airlines creditors! What kind of a business model is that? Considering the amount of technological innovation, and the increased traffic volume, it seems altogether possible that fares would have fallen more without deregulation! Heck, the food might even have been edible!
This is only one industry, but the story's the same everywhere you look: the deregulation mania has been a disaster for America. Sure, stupid regulations can be a pain in the ass. But that's about stupidity, not regulation per se.
This is an excellent report, but we need to build on this and other detailed reporting on specific failures of de-regulation to develop a new narrative stressing the positive value of smart, far-sighted regulation in crafting systems that work for everyone. If freedom means anything, it's not just freedom from arbitrary restraints, it's freedom to do things of one's own choosing, and the capacity to do things depends in part on soundly-functioning systems, from cars that won't blow up to government that won't get you killed for reasons they lie to you about. That's why smart regulations expand our freedom, rather than restricting it.
A few juicy tidbits from the report on the flip--along with some broader thoughts on history, transportation and freedom.
In a major victory for voting rights, low-income voters in the state of Missouri will finally have better access to voter registration opportunities, thanks to a lawsuit settlement announced today by Project Vote, Demos, and the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
(Here's the promised diary from Demos in tandem with my previous diary - promoted by Paul Rosenberg)
By Caleb Gibson
In remarks made at a summit in Trinidad and Tobago this past weekend, National Economic Council director Larry Summers teed up what has turned out to be a very active week in the credit card reform arena. Summers told NBC’s David Gregory that President Obama would be "very focused in the very near term on a whole set of issues having to do with credit card abuses."
He wasn't kidding.
Thursday, Obama, Summers, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and White House senior advisor Valerie Jarrett held a "pow-wow" with over a dozen executives from the major credit card issuers and networks to discuss lending practices that have roiled consumers and lawmakers.
(Some have compared this meeting to being called to the principal's office or taken out to the woodshed. One Republican credit card lobbyist told POLITICO, "the companies will get the s*** beat out of them by the President and Summers." We consumer advocates would love to get that much attention from the White House.)
But before the White House got their chance to let the credit card companies have it, the industry came under fire from at least three other federal entities.
"Hispanic and African-American communities are being deprived of the opportunity to register to vote at a higher rate than anybody else," Kettenring said. "So this is a fairness issue, but it's also a civil rights issue."
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